The route, shown below, was about 90 miles long, but looked to have some good twisties and a nice view, and google made the whole thing look like fairly major road.

Imagine my surprise when I hit a stretch of gravel. I figured it was just a bit of gravel and no big deal, so imagine my surprise (again) when I hit the sign warning of a 15% grade. I had a good 5 minute debate on whether or not to turn around, while moving forward at about 15 mph, and decided to tough it out. Maybe a little stupid but the road was dry and in good shape.

Impressively, Google Street View actually has this road photographed, which almost makes up for me not stopping to take any pictures myself. This link may give you an idea of the road. Check out that slope, eh?

I made it out just fine, and a few miles later hit CO-97, which follows the Platte River and is a really fine ride. Everything after that was good times. The first picture here is from after I got back on the good road. There was a fire on the right some time ago, and all the trees were burned out for miles. The second is from the Garden of the Gods area in Colorado Springs.

The Garden was pretty cool, and I took a roll of slides with the Yashica that should come back from the lab tomorrow. The sun was really bright and the shadows kind of harsh, but that’s life. Better light was coming but it was coming with some mean looking thunderheads. I hit the Interstate to get home and ended up racing a thunderstorm. I won by a good 30 minutes.

Oh, and total distance was about 160 miles that day. Not bad.

I spent a good amount of time researching various bikes, debating features, riding positions, bike weight, etc, and eventually settled on the Suzuki SV650 naked. The trouble I had after that was finding one. I tried several dealerships and no one had the naked version. Everyone had the version with the fairings, which has a much more forward-leaning riding position than the naked version.

Eventually I was ready to give up on finding the bike I wanted and nearly bought a used Kawasaki Ninja 650R, which has a similar riding position and engine, but looks more like a sport bike. Right before I was about to do a deal, Aaron found the bike I was actually looking for at a dealer up on Colfax. I went up there, found the bike, and immediately worked out a deal.

I picked the bike up yesterday, as well as some riding gear. I got it home with no incidents; everything felt really good. I credit the riding course for this. The initial nervousness about riding at all went away in just a few minutes (though the general nervousness about traffic did not).

I had read a few things about the throttle in the SV being “twitchy” but I haven’t really noticed anything unusual. It has a much smoother response than the GZ250 I learned on in class, and it is very easy to ride sedately in traffic. Since yesterday I’ve hit the throttle harder a couple of times, and the bike has a huge amount of pull. I could really scare myself if I had that desire, but I’m so very boring.

That’s probably a good thing.

Sam’s arrival was sort of funny. I got a text message with one word: “Gretchen.” I had to think about it for a bit, but then I realized he was referencing “Gretchen Goes to Nebraska,” and it meant he had just made it to Nebraska from Minneapolis. The time of the message meant he would get in around 1 am. Bryan and I got back from Adam’s place around 12:30 or so, and I was beat, so I climbed into bed and Bryan took the sofa. Shortly after I heard a noise that sounded like the Celica (giant fart can!), and soon after that I heard Sam’s voice. I went out and opened the door before he had a chance to knock or whatever. Pretty brilliant.

2008-05-25 GPS Tracklog (kmz)

2008-05-17 GPS Log (kmz)

2008-05-16 GPS Tracklog (kmz)

Distance: 17.5 mi
Min Alt 1.047 mi
Max Alt: 1.076 mi

Download the kmz for Google Earth here.

For help reading the charts, the red line is the moving average trend line. In the monthly chart, the diamonds are actual recorded weights. In the total progress chart, the actual weights are shown in dull gray. The dashed yellow line is the goal line. The flat spot at the end of April is my trip to NYC, where I didn’t have access to a scale.

I spent Friday afternoon at the American Museum of Natural History, which is adjacent to Central Park. It’s an amazing place, and in the 4+ hours I wandered I think I managed to glimpse everything but did not get a careful look at very much at all. The place is huge.

After I left the museum I hung out in Central Park for a while. The weather was perfect and people were out in force. I met Lindsey in the mall on the way back to Jersey and Andy met us shortly after. We hung out at his place and while I was working on some of the photos I took and then I looked up and SAM was there. Turns out they had been planning this for months and I was completely unprepared. I think my exact works when it all clicked were “brilliant.”

We ate at the apartment and drank on roof deck that night, and I met a bunch of Andy’s neighbors. It seems like everyone in his building knows everyone else, which is pretty cool as long as people get along.

On Saturday we wandered around Manhattan. We rode the ferry out to Staten Island, which was pretty awesome, and took Sam to his Mecca, the Nintendo World Store. Andy and Sam managed to pick up Mario Kart a day before it officially came out.

After that we went to Top of the Rock, which has an amazing view over the city. $20 to get it but totally worth it. That night we ate at Dell’Anima, which I highly recommend. You may need a reservation well ahead of time, however. We probably started eating around 11 PM and left well after midnight.

Andy’s neighbor lent him her gigantic Mustang GT, which he had told us about before. It’s a beast, but super fun if you can get some open road. It absolutely hates driving slowly. We even took it to Ikea and managed to get a box over 6 feet long in there without it sticking out the back, though we squished Lindsey in the process.

New York is a very fun place to visit, especially when you know people. I’ll get my pictures organized some and get a gallery up here soon.

The issue is that there is supposed to be a massive new tower installed on Lookout mountain (I think that’s the right place) for all the local affiliates digital broadcast, and getting that permitted etc is taking forever. Right now the various internet sites that deal with broadcast locations and signal strength show that I would receive barely marginal signals for everything.

Out of curiosity I checked, and my parents would be able to get all the regular networks in HD already with nice, strong signals. Denver is this big city and Des Moines has it beat for HD television. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

The other fun thing (arguably more fun, actually, I mean a TV is just a TV) is that I am going to New York City in a week. I haven’t been there since November of 2006, and now Andy has a new place and I have more money. I’m so busy at work that I need to get the hell out of here for a while, and next week’s trip is the ticket. I just have to survive another week.

The weather here has been a little bit silly. It was in the 70s yesterday and I ran my car AC to cool it down from sitting in the sun. Today it has been snowing since the early afternoon. It is expected to snow tomorrow and then be almost 70 on Friday. Welcome to Colorado, I guess.

Speaking of Colorado, New Belgium Brewery has mentioned a beer on their site called La Folie for a while, but I always got the impression it was only available at the brewery in Fort Collins. They decided to bottle it though, since I found and bought a bottle at the local liquor store yesterday. I look forward to drinking it, but it won’t happen tonight.

I have a pretty sizable patio, and I expect to stay in this apartment for another year unless they really jack up the rent. I have been meaning to buy some chairs and a table for the outside so I can sit out there and drink and grill in the summertime. With nights not being sweltering like KC I should try to take advantage.

That’s all for now I think.